On the shop floor

IT is a measure of the extent to which Labour has moved on farming policy in the past decade that it should fall to Mary Creagh, the Shadow Environment Secretary, to point out that food and drink is now the largest manufacturing sector in the UK with a £76.2bn annual turnover and responsibility for 400,000 jobs.

Yet some of the issues highlighted by the Wakefield MP yesterday would not be so serious if Tony Blair’s government had done more to recognise the importance of the countryside and wider rural economy. That said, Ms Creagh finds herself on the side of common sense with her warning that the Government appears to be prevaricating over the launch of the Groceries Code Adjudicator.

She’s right – local producers, who are increasingly vital to guaranteeing food sustainability, increasingly find themselves at the mercy of large supermarkets looking to maximise their own profits to satisfy their investors. And while the large food stores have made some progress, most notably over labelling, more needs to be done and Ministers would, therefore, be advised to take Ms Creagh’s observations to heart.